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Trade show tumult in Copenhagen

by Maria Hunstig — October 08, 2014

One cancellation, one name change and one date change: the Copenhagen fashion trade show landscape is in transition. According to latest information, Gallery, traditionally showcasing more than 300 hip international and Scandinavian upscale brands such as Wood Wood, Soulland, or Samsoe & Samsoe, will not take place in its usual form at Forum Copenhagen. The “new Gallery“ will rather work as an organization to bring buyers to the different brand showrooms in the city and host fashion shows and events in collaboration with Jeudan Real Estate.

Former Gallery exhibitors who still want to take part in a trade show during Copenhagen Fashion Week will have the choice to exhibit either at Copenhagen’s biggest trade show CIFF at Bellacenter or at Revolver, the new title of former Vision trade show.

Last week, CIFF finally announced the official dates of its upcoming winter edition after long discussions and power games between the local trade show organizers. It will run from Thursday, January 29 to Monday, February 1, 2015 – a date that was agreed on in favor of unifying the Copenhagen trade show schedule which however does “not correspond to CIFF’s long-term strategy, working on moving away from the weekends and into the weekdays“, as CIFF put it.Shortly before this announcement, Revolver, which will occupy both Øksnehallen and Lokomotivværkstedet during its upcoming edition, had confirmed its schedule from January 29-31. CIFF's originally favored date in week 6 of 2015 would have clashed with London's menswear trade show Jacket Required and womenswear trade show Scoop, Oslo's Moteuka and finally the start of New York Fashion Week.

During the latest Copenhagen Fashion Week in August, the timing policies of trade shows CIFF, Gallery and Vision were a big topic with exhibitors and visitors complaining about the inability of all stakeholders to come up with a common date (Gallery and CIFF only overlapped for one day in August). Moreover, there had already been rumors about Gallery not hosting a show at Forum in February but Gallery’s CEO Christian Gregersen kept on assuring he wasn’t about to move his fair for the next five years (read our previous coverage here).